Lucem Cordibus

The Three Brutes

When Milan finally rose from his bed, he noticed that it was different. The sheets were far softer, his pillows thicker seemingly stuffed with more feathers! He looked around the room and assessed his situation. 'I'm definitely not in my bed!' he thought, that's when he noticed that there was another bed adjacent to his, and in that bed, another creature was sleeping peacefully. When he saw the creature's face, that's when all of his memories from last night returned.

"Woah, that seriously happened?!" he said, looking back at his new friend and confirming that none of the events last night were a dream and in fact were real.

Checking his friend and seeing that he was still asleep, Milan finally had the opportunity to truly see his friend's furry form.

He has white fur, as all Spirit Guardians usually do, his ears are long, and looks fluffy. He has two sets of what seems to be antennae on his forehead, what they are and how they are used still baffles him, he has hooves for his feet and his tail is fluffy like that of a fox, actually, if you just remove the long fluffy ears, the hooves and replace them with that of a fox while removing the antennae all together, Ao would definitely pass for one, albeit a larger one that walks and talks and wears leather armor. He even has the same muzzle as a fox!

Shaking his head from his thoughts and feeling a little bit embarrassed about his, 'checking out my new friend moment', Milan stood up from his bed, cleaned it, gathered his things, and woke his friend up.

Ao, who was having a nice dream about his home and his people, was suddenly awakened by someone shaking him. Very Hard. Getting out of bed and opening his eyes, he saw the culprit for such a rude awakening.

"Milan what the heck are you doing!" he shouted, pissed at his friend for waking him up in that manner.

"Sorry, sorry, I just didn't know what else to do, you weren't waking up when I called your name and you weren't waking up when I tried to shake you gently so I thought I'd just do it harder and it seems it worked!" Milan said.

Letting out a huge sigh and shaking his head from his friend's rather unusual way of waking up somebody. Ao jokingly said. "It's alright, besides, I know I'm quite a heavy sleeper. My people used to even make a game out of it, of who's going to wake me up first!"

Laughing at his friend's joke Milan was just happy his friend wasn't angry at him and just let it go, though he was still quite embarrassed about what he did.

After gathering his items and cleaning his own bed, Ao then asks Milan if he wanted to go down for breakfast. Agreeing Milan quickly opened the door and beckoned his friend out. "Man I'm starving. I hope the food in the morning would taste as good as last night!"

Ao let out a chuckle and said. "We'll see."

When the two came down, they saw that only a few people were present in the dining hall. They quickly occupied a table near one of the walls of the inn and called for the innkeeper, who goes to them after seeing them on the table.

"What can I offer you this day fine gentlemen?" the innkeeper asked, smiling at the two.

"Just some nice ol' breakfast sir!" Milan replied

The innkeeper nodded and went to the kitchen to gather their meals.

Ao looked around and saw that a lot of people seemed to be staring at him, a bit used to such behavior, he shrugged and just turned his focus back to his human friend and saw him staring at him, his chocolate brown eyes full of worry.

"Hey if those guys bother you so much, we can just leave this place and find somewhere else to eat." He offered.

Shaking his head Ao replied. "No need, I'm quite used to this. I am a creature you humans barely see and besides I'm bound to gather attention, the odd one out you know?" gesturing to himself.